


You are Dust

by telm_393



Category: The Magnificent Seven (2016)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Study, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hugs, Past Violence, Touch-Starved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-27
Updated: 2018-06-27
Packaged: 2019-05-29 07:04:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15067769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/telm_393/pseuds/telm_393
Summary: Vasquez finds peace.





	You are Dust

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Hazel_Athena](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hazel_Athena/gifts).



> This could definitely, definitely be read as Varaday pre-slash, but I put the story down as Gen because I'm pretty sure that M/M would be misleading. 
> 
> I'm doing Bad Things Happen Bingo (and taking requests!) and Hazel_Athena requested the touch-starved square with touch-starved Vasquez plus Faraday. It kind of...grew. Vasquez rambles a lot, apparently.

There was a time when Vasquez was not alone, and a time, even longer ago, when he was safe.

Things have changed.

These days he’s all disappearing acts and questions dodged as he runs and runs and never stops because he can’t—death follows him wherever he goes, but he can’t let her catch up, because Vasquez has nothing to live for and yet he still desperately, _desperately_ wants to survive.

Death is not the end, but that doesn’t make the fact that most people Vasquez meets would rather he be dead than living any better, because Vasquez doesn’t want to die like they want him to. He doesn’t want to die hunted. He’s faced death so many times before—his own and the death of everyone he’s ever loved—and still he can’t make peace with it, or at least not the kind of death the life he now lives wants for him. It doesn’t feel right.

Vasquez isn’t meant to be slaughtered like a rabid animal, so instead he is unbearably alive.

His heart beats rabbit quick. He can always feel it pounding through his whole body.

His hands shake.

His stomach burns. He feels hollow, like a long time ago—maybe when the last good thing in his life died—he got cut straight up the middle and all his guts were scooped out and now he’s just walking wounded.

He feels like he’s going mad. He thinks he’s going mad. He doesn’t have the chance to talk to people anymore. These days, he’s more likely to kill a man than speak to him, because though Vasquez may not be ready to meet death, he is more than willing to introduce others to her.

That’s what got him into this mess in the first place, even though he doesn’t regret what he did, not exactly. He regrets not being able to protect what he loved, regrets everything that led to the moment that he looked that Ranger in the eye, ignored every plea for mercy he saw there, and shot until there were no eyes to look into, and he definitely regrets almost getting caught.

But he doesn’t regret killing that Ranger, who was so willing to tear apart lives because they belonged to those who he saw as less than human to him.

That Ranger was very human to Vasquez. Every man Vasquez has killed is very human to him.

Every man Vasquez has killed, he has killed for a good reason, and he’ll be seeing them all in Hell.

For now, though, he feels cold.

At night, the wind licks at his hair, his face, and he feels his skin crawl. He opens his mouth to speak, but his voice is eaten by the wide open space around him that says _nothing_ because there’s nobody with him and he can’t fool himself by pretending he’s not the only one around. He knows his own voice too well.

Vasquez is all alone, running from the past, and still the ghosts catch up to him, and still he can’t touch them.

Every day is the same, the weight of isolation making his muscles ache, never able to stay in the same place, going from abandoned home to abandoned mine. It makes sense. He has been abandoned by God, he is sure of it. He used to be able to feel God, back on the ranch, back with his family, with those he loved, but he has done just about everything possible to make God turn his back on him.

There’s no connection, no warmth. There’s a quick fuck, once or twice, and that’s something, even though he has to settle for whores. It’s too risky to seek out the company of men when he’s already got a target on his back. Besides, Vasquez has already loved a man and lost a man, and nobody will be the one he has loved anymore, so he doesn’t even try.

Sometimes he feels like he isn’t real. Like nothing is real. No one knows him anymore, and he is responsible for nothing, and there’s nobody to hold.

Near the end of the Hell he got himself into, he’s lucky enough to find an abandoned cabin, and he’s not surprised to see the corpse inside it, not because he expected a corpse but because he just can’t be surprised anymore.

He always used to be surprised by other people, delighted by them, even, and now there are no other people. He really ought to be used to it by now, but still he obsesses over the lack of humanity in his life, and still he dreams of it. Dreams of people he has loved, even just of being around people again without the threat of death, without the knowledge that he can’t get close. Can’t touch.

Vasquez always used to be the kind of man who touched and who loved touch, the small hands of his little cousin cradling his face, his mother’s embrace, a woman’s hands warm in his while they danced, his lover’s lips trailing down his chest, the comfort of somebody being close enough that he could feel their breath and the way they shook when they laughed, so alive against him.

Vasquez is strong and good with guns, and yet not many people he has loved are alive anymore. He doesn’t have anyone, and sometimes he thinks he never has. Maybe he was put on this Earth to lose, all the suffering of a martyr and none of the glory, not that he deserves it, because he’s no hero, and he’s certainly not selfless, not willing to give himself up to anything greater than himself.

And then he meets Emma Cullen and Sam Chisolm, and suddenly he’s willing, but he can’t give himself too much credit, because it feels like fate. Like this is what he was meant to do, what he’s been running towards, why he never gave into the destiny the law chose for him.

If he goes out defending some town, it’s not because he’s been caught. It’s because he wanted to.

Vasquez is partial to doing things because he wants to. He hasn’t had the chance for so long, and not having Chisolm on his tail isn’t a bad deal either, though it’s not the reason he decides to join up with him and Cullen.

He decides to join up because he wants to fight a battle he just might be able to win, and even if he loses, well, maybe helping these strangers will mean enough that his place in Hell won’t be so cruel.

Besides, he’s tired of talking to a corpse.

He’d rather talk to even fucking Faraday, who is a piece of shit—until he isn’t—but is at least living and breathing. They’re all living and breathing, and finally Vasquez can be safe among other human beings as they all march towards the same ending.

He can feel a part of himself coming back every time he speaks to one of them, every time he hears their breathing in the night, every time their shoulders brush. Finally there are people on his side.

He expects to die in battle. He thinks all of them do. He thinks some of them may even be looking forward to it.

Not him, but he’s still finally able to make his peace with death. It turns out that what he didn’t want was to die in the wrong circumstances, and he’s lucky that he found the right one.

Then he doesn’t die. None of them do. It’s a relief so deep that it hurts, because he doesn’t know how he would’ve dealt with it, if the new friends—the only friends he’d had in _years,_ never mind that they could barely be counted as such—he had made had died. Even Faraday, by some miracle, makes it, and he blew himself up.

Sure, he didn’t get out without a scratch like Sam and Red Harvest, but a couple of big burns and a broken bone or two and the kind of aches and pains that’ll never go away are a small price to pay for life.

Vasquez has to admit that, out of everyone, during those weeks of preparation for the end he made the strongest connection with Faraday (of all people, but they’re more alike than different, in the end), and he spends a lot of time in Faraday’s room even after he recovers from his gunshot wound, but he gets to know the others too while they rebuild Rose Creek and when he and Sam and Red Harvest start going on bounties together before the others were well enough to even ride a horse, let alone go on the kind of...adventures that would get them payouts big enough to last them a while.

Vasquez isn’t as cold anymore, but his skin still crawls, and he’s still sometimes not completely sure if this is all real, and when the others aren’t around he sometimes feels a quiet panic set in, the despair of knowing that this is it, it’s over, this new, better life is done and he’s alone again.

It’s all _sometimes,_ though, and that’s so much better than it used to be, and Rose Creek is there for him too, though when he’s away he worries, since he’s not there to protect it.

He feels responsible now. He _is_ responsible now.

For the other six, for the remaining people of Rose Creek. Now that he has people again, he won’t let himself lose them.

He knows them by now, has spent hours by their side as they recovered, has learned how they fight, has shared meals with them, has gotten drunk with them countless times…

(Well. Not so much Red Harvest. Vasquez and Goodnight and Billy and Faraday only got Red drunk once, in the spirit of what Faraday called “good ol’ fashioned male bonding,” which may also have been influenced by the amount of boredom he and Goody and Billy were feeling, injured and cooped up.

They…don’t really talk about it.)

Vasquez is relieved that he has found a team, found _people;_ a family, even, after losing his. He didn’t expect it, and he doesn’t deserve it, but he has it, and that’s enough.

He’s found a home in Rose Creek, though he’ll be away enough to not get the kind of itch that leads to blood that should not have been spilled.

He’s not alone anymore. He’s safe, except for when he feels like he isn’t, when everything feels too _open_ around him, when he thinks, for just a moment, that he’s lost them, lost everything he’s built—after all, it’s only been a few months, the injured still have time to get sick and die, still have time to have a change of heart and decide to leave, still have time to turn their backs on him. He dreams of it, of the others turning him in, of the people of Rose Creek realizing who he is and hanging him, and, worse, of having to run again, being alone again.

Vasquez never wants to be alone again, but every time he’s had what he wants, he’s lost it. So he holds on tight.

The others joke about it, call him a mother hen, but he just doesn’t want them to die, doesn’t want them to leave, because it’s not just that there’s people in his life now. It’s that finally, _finally_ there is touch in his life too, even though he can’t bring himself to touch them. Maybe there’s a part of him that’s afraid they’ll recoil from him, wonder who he is that he thinks that he can _touch them first,_ afraid that they think he’s as dirty as he feels sometimes.

So he has to stick with what the others give him, and nothing more, but it’s something, and it has to be everything.

The first time Sam claps him on the shoulder, Vasquez nearly weeps. It may not be skin on skin, but he can feel Sam’s hand heavy and warm through his shirt, and Vasquez stands still as a statue, trying to memorize what it feels like. When Goody throws an arm around him, Vasquez is embarrassed by the way that he relaxes, the way that he leans in. Jack is also fond of quick touches here and there, and has a strange but welcome habit of brushing Vasquez’s hair from his face, the whisper of his fingers against Vasquez’s forehead brushing away the crawling for just a moment.

Billy doesn’t really touch anyone but Goodnight, and is always stiff when anyone else touches him, though he doesn’t pull away. Red Harvest usually keeps his distance from everyone, and Vasquez has never seen him touch anyone in a way that didn’t draw blood, but he’ll sit with Vasquez and doesn’t shift away anymore when their shoulders brush.

And Faraday—he likes touching people too. It’s easy for him, in the way it used to be easy for Vasquez. Like Goody, he’ll throw an arm around Vasquez, and Vasquez will always lean in, and Faraday will squeeze his shoulders. It’s somehow still never enough. Vasquez, selfish no matter what, apparently, wants something _more._ He wants to just hold somebody again. He thinks it would be easiest with Faraday, and the truth is that Faraday is the one he wants to do it with, but he definitely isn’t going to ask, not even without words, and Vasquez isn’t going to try to touch first. Never.

Vasquez has his walls up, and he doesn’t think they’ll ever completely break down. That’s probably for the best. The man Vasquez used to be was too fragile, and he’s already been broken enough.

Still, there’s a part of him that knows that keeping his distance is just cowardice.

 _Love is strength,_ his mother used to say. _And so is admitting what kind of love you want. Remember that._

He does, every single day. He didn’t want to, not too long ago, but he’s made his peace with a lot of things these days.

It turns out that he’s just been waiting for the right moment to be strong again, and once again the moment comes to him.

Vasquez has nightmares. Everyone knows it, and everyone lets it be, because they all have nightmares. The others will wake him up when he’s loud about it, like he’ll wake them up, but no one dwells on it or asks what he dreams about, and he doesn’t have the nightmares every time he sleeps anymore. Besides, he’s usually the one to sit with the others—except Goodnight and Billy, because they have each other—when they have their own bad dreams, which helps distract him from his own.

Still, he has them, and tonight he’s in Rose Creek. It’s dark, and he looks around and there’s nobody, and it’s not really Rose Creek, just burnt husks of what was the town he helped rebuild, and he _feels it._

He feels that he’s completely alone.

They’re dead, and not just the people of Rose Creek. His family is dead, and he knows it. It doesn’t matter how this happened, doesn’t matter why, just matters that it did, senseless as all his other loss has been.

There’s not even a corpse to talk to _._

He couldn’t protect them.

He’s failed again. He’s lost again.

Oh, God, he’s lost again, and he’s nothing and still they’re gone and he’s alive, he’s going to be alive forever, the only thing that’s going to be his constant companion is this pain, he’s alone again, he’s alone again, he’s alone—

“Vasquez! Wake up!”

His chest heaves and his heart beats rabbit quick and he’s back in the room he shares with Faraday because that’s just how it happened, okay, he sleeps on the floor and Faraday sleeps on the bed and Faraday is kneeling over him, which must hurt like hell with his injuries, and he’s looking down at Vasquez in a way he hasn’t before, eyes wide and panicked like a spooked horse, and Vasquez can’t believe he’s real.

_Oh._

This is the dream, isn’t it? When he was alone, he used to dream of that, of the people he loved, and he would wake up and know that they weren’t there anymore and there would be tears on his face.

There are tears on his face now.

This isn’t real. That’s the problem. It’s not that Vasquez isn’t real, it’s that nothing else is. Vasquez, for his part, is painfully, painfully real, aware of every part of himself that’s still alive, and it hurts. His heart hurts. It’s beating too fast and it hurts so much and Vasquez sits up in one fluid motion and grabs Faraday’s wrist and _oh._

There he is. There they are, in this little room in this little town, and Vasquez can feel Faraday’s skin on his. “Josh,” he says breathlessly. “Oh, thank God. Gracias a Dios, gracias.”

He lets go of Faraday’s wrist and lets go of his fear and loops his arms loosely around Faraday’s shoulders, leans his forehead against Faraday’s. Vasquez’s forehead is hot and slick with sweat while Faraday’s is cool, and Vasquez’s skin doesn’t crawl, and Faraday is stiff until he’s not, until he leans in, presses his own forehead to Vasquez’s, and they breathe together. “Happy to see you too,” Faraday finally says after what might be minutes, the joke weak but welcome. Vasquez can feel Faraday’s breath on his face, the words on his own lips, and he smiles. Faraday smiles back, confusion still plain on his face.

This feels good. Vasquez hasn’t felt this good in a long time, his body safely on the ground, all the broken pieces of him pushed back together by Faraday’s presence. He pulls Faraday closer, buries his face in his neck, and Faraday, after a moment of hesitation, mutters _okay, sure,_ and hugs him back tightly.

“I’m not alone,” Vasquez says, words he hasn’t been able to get out for so long because he’s been so afraid that they’re somehow not true.

But Faraday says, without missing a beat, “Of course not, Vasquez.”

“Thank God,” Vasquez says, and then, “Don’t let go. Don’t let go until I do.”

“…Okay,” is Faraday’s response. “Okay, compadre, whatever you say.”

Vasquez can feel Faraday’s heartbeat like he can feel the rest of him pressed against his body, strong and very, very alive. They’re all alive, they’re not alone, and this is the closest to a state of grace Vasquez will ever reach.

He loves it.

**Author's Note:**

> My Tumblr is serendipitouscontaminant, and there's not much Mag7 content on it, but I'd like that to change. :D
> 
> This is the helpful link to the Bad Things Happen Bingo card that I didn't think to put here at first:  
> https://serendipitouscontaminant.tumblr.com/post/174682080060/ahhhh-i-got-my-card-for-the-bad-things-happen


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